Reversals of teens' move to adult court raise questions about process

Juvenile justice advocates say process abused

AUSTIN - For the first time, Texas appeals courts have overturned the convictions of two teenagers tried as adults, ruling that the juvenile courts did not provide enough evidence to explain why the youths were "certified" as adult defendants.

Juvenile justice advocates and some lawmakers say the two cases, both from Harris County, show that it's past time to examine how the state pushes defendants under 17 into the adult criminal justice system. Critics say this practice, known as certification, follows a pro-forma, rubber-stamp process.

"The whole certification process - and I've been saying this for several years - needs to be reviewed. It's pretty arbitrary," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Criminal Justice Committee. "I think it warrants hearings to get greater input from all the stakeholders and put a face on the cases we're talking about."

Under current law, defendants aged 14 to 16 can be certified by a juvenile court judge to stand trial as adults based on criteria including whether the crime was against a person or property, the juvenile defendant's maturity level and previous criminal record.

They cannot appeal the certifications until they are found guilty, a process that can often take months or years. For the past quarter century, not a single juvenile certification had been successfully challenged - until last month.

The first decision came Dec. 10 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the conviction of Cameron Moon, a Deer Park teenager. He was sentenced to 30 years for murder in the 2008 shooting death of fellow Deer Park teen Christopher Seabreak when Moon was 16.

Fewer than two weeks later, a three-justice panel of the Houston-based 14th Court of Appeals vacated the conviction of Jorge Guerrero, who was sentenced in 2013 to eight years for an armed robbery he committed at age 16. The panel sent his case back to the juvenile court.

In both instances, the decisions noted the Harris County juvenile court did not give sufficient evidence as to why the youths in question should stand trial as adults. Instead, it relied on a "form order" process that allows judges to check off boxes and fill in the blanks for each certification, rather than give a detailed explanation for why a defendant was mature enough, and how a crime was egregious enough, to warrant trial in the adult criminal justice system.

'Abused its discretion'

"Like the order in Moon, the transfer order in this case makes no findings about the specifics of the alleged offense," 14th Court of Criminal Appeals Justice Ken Wise wrote in the Guerrero case. "We hold that the juvenile court abused its discretion by waiving its jurisdiction and transferring appellant to the criminal district court."

The juvenile court's failure to "show its work" has been a concern for advocates and some lawmakers, who have long pushed for a review of the certification process. On the heels of the Moon and Guerrero cases, public defenders hope the Legislature develops a uniform, statewide certification process.

They and juvenile justice advocates also are pushing for the age of adulthood in Texas to be upped from 17 to 18.

And agreement is coalescing around giving youthful offenders the ability to appeal their certifications before they're convicted, a right the Legislature took away in the mid-1990s.

Not far enough?

Michele Deitch, a juvenile justice expert and senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, said she thought the Moon and Guerrero cases were unique enough that the precedent they set would be unlikely to lead to a flood of other appeals by certified juveniles. Additionally, she said they did not change the criteria for certification, which would remain unchanged unless the Legislature made the decision to tighten the process.

"The Moon case is extremely important insofar as it requires judges to put their reasoning on the record," said Deitch. "But nothing at all changes about what makes someone eligible for certification."

The number of juvenile certifications statewide has dropped in recent years, from 248 in 2008 to 209 five years later. Harris County experienced one of the biggest drops - from 78 to 29 over that same period - a shift some chalk up to a combination of increased pressure on the three juvenile judges and a greater emphasis by some to take more time on certification cases.

Seeing an increase

Smaller counties in the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere on the Texas-Mexico border have seen a recent increase. Where Harris County's certification rate stood at 7.4 for every 100,000 juveniles in 2013, the rates in Val Verde and Starr Counties were more than 200 times that.

Harris County Assistant Public Defender Cheri Duncan said she wasn't sure whether these smaller counties were relying on the same form order certification process used in Harris County.

The discrepancy in the rates - and the varying severity of offenses for which youth are certified - lends credence to concerns the process is administered arbitrarily, advocates say.

"It has a really negative impact on youth of color," said Ana Yáñez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. According to an analysis by Deitch, for example, more than 8 in 10 of the juveniles certified in 2013 were black or Hispanic.

Raising 'adult' age

Yáñez-Correa's group is urging that Texas increase its age of adulthood from 17 to 18, a proposal backed by Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia. Other advocates hope lawmakers tweak state requirements for certification through statewide standards for juvenile courts.

Until then, Moon and Guerrero will continue to fight for their release.

While Moon, now 22, is effectively a free man, his family is having trouble coming up with the court-approved bail amount. News organizations have reported that the Harris County District Attorney's Office is preparing to seek his recertification and retrial. Meanwhile, the state has another few weeks to challenge the Guerrero ruling. Calls to Harris County Assistant District Attorney Dan McCrory were unreturned Friday.

Duncan said she's unsure what prosecutors' next steps will be for Moon and Guerrero, but she hopes the high-profile cases represent a fundamental change in how Texas treats its juvenile offenders.

"I hope it's a tipping point. I know it's a huge opinion, Moon is, for juvenile justice across the state," Duncan said. "Whether it's any kind of a signal of a shift in how we approach juvenile crime, it's too early to say yet."